CAMPAIGNS

Swimwear brand Andie <3s Andy Warhol Andi Dorfman Andy Samberg celebrity influencers

Marketers seem to agree on one thing: If you build it, they will take pictures of it, and (maybe) tag and follow your brand on Instagram. It’s a strategy that brands like Adidas and Glossier have leaned into lately.

Swimwear company Andie dove deeper (no pun intended) into that insight this summer. 

• In July, the DTC bathing suit brand put up a billboard on Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills. 
• Featuring Demi Moore and her three daughters (Rumer, Tallulah, and Scout), the billboard and its coinciding social campaign fueled a boom for Andie’s Instagram account. 

Celebrities: they’re just like us (but with better Instagram followings)

The billboard was partly created to boost Andie’s Instagram following. Travis realized featuring a celebrity—rather than less recognizable models—on the billboard could help. 

• She told us the latest billboard has led to “a lot of Demi’s celebrity friends snapping photos, sharing them on Instagram, and tagging Andie.” 
• For instance, Moore’s friends Jamie Lee Curtis (who has 3.3 million IG followers) and Melanie Griffith (532K followers) did just that when the billboard went up.

That was intentional: Travis said those Instagram posts from Moore’s famous friends weren't exactly a drive-by coincidence. “When we work with a celebrity, whether it's Claire Holt or Demi Moore, we always incorporate a gifting strategy as well. So when their campaign is going to launch, we ask them, ‘Who of your friends would be interested in trying Andie?’ That is very much a part of the strategy, getting their friends to also post. It's something that we were really thankful was actually very successful.”

Results: Before the billboard went up on July 26, Moore and her daughters teased it by posting photos from the shoot on their respective Instagrams. Andie also posted OOH ads from the campaign throughout New York City, and supported the overall push with paid and organic social posts. Between July 6 and July 28, Andie said its Instagram gained 10.5K followers (that’s a 440% increase), + likes per post increased 150%, to an average of 2,100. 

The swimsuit brand told Marketing Brew those metrics translated to sales, too: Three of Andie’s styles sold out in July. 

Money money money

Travis didn’t write a check the size of a billboard to hire Moore and her daughters. Instead, Moore holds equity in the company, which was founded in 2016. 

• “Major celebrities are often very interested in equity deals, so sometimes they can cost as little as zero cash,” Travis shared.
• Travis thinks equity deals also make for more authentic content, because the celebrity has a stake in the brand. 
• “For celebrity campaigns to be successful, it can't be like ‘Here's a huge check’ and that person posts, and then you call it a day. I think everyone understands there's nothing really going on between that celebrity and that brand, and that it's just some thinly veiled advertising thing,” Travis explained. 

To read the full article, click here.—PB

MARKETING

New new Coke?

When you’ve got a blue-chip, iconic brand, any rebrand (or reengineering) should be done with caution. Coca-Cola should know. After it changed its recipe in the mid-’80s, people began hoarding Classic Coke, fearful they’d lose the taste they’d come to love. Months later, Coke brought back its Classic recipe. It was a case study in marketing disasters.

Now, Coca-Cola is debuting a new formula for Coke Zero Sugar that’s supposed to more closely resemble its Classic soda. It’s rolling out a campaign to mark the experiment occasion, called “Best Coke Ever?” One of the ads shows a dinosaur and its reaper, a speeding meteor, arguing over whether the reformulated soda is actually the best Coke (editor’s note: Cherry—the answer is Cherry Coke). Another spot shows the drink’s new packaging. 

The campaign’s tagline begs consumers to “Try it first!” before making judgments.

Where you’ll see it:

• On streaming platforms like Hulu, Roku, Amazon Fire, and Spotify
• On traditional TV like NBC, ESPN, and Fox
• On out-of-home inventory in 77 markets
• And, for sampling reasons, a block party in Harlem. 

Some who have tried it have already aired their grievances on Twitter (as one does), calling it “bleh,” “flat,” and “ruined.” So we’ll see if the company comes crawling back with its old Coke Zero Sugar formula, like it did with the Classic flavor.

Zoom out: This isn’t the first time the soda giant has tried to improve Coke Zero Sugar—in 2017, it changed the recipe so it would “taste more like standard Coca-Cola,” per The New York Times. Its latest do-over comes as the company banks on Coke Zero Sugar as a crowd-pleaser; earlier this year, Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey told CNBC that the product is its “biggest driver of growth.”—RB

SPONSORED BY KLAVIYO

You Never Want to Hear There Are No More Cookies

Not when you show up to the birthday party a little late, and definitely not in marketing. But upcoming changes in third-party cookie rules spell uncertainty for marketers. 

The good news: Klaviyo asked a panel of experts how marketers should adapt to the upcoming changes, and spun up an exhaustive guide on how to navigate the choppy waters ahead. 

Voilà: 13 tips to own your growth in the wake of changing consumer privacy laws. This baby lays out exactly how to shift your strategy to sell more effectively in a privacy-first world. That means: 

• Tips for acquisition and retention 
• Tips for conversion and optimization 
• What flipping the funnel means 

And more insights drawn from e-commerce masters like Tinuiti, Classy Llama, and MuteSix. 

Find out how to cope with an empty cookie jar here.

FROM THE CREW

After an...eventful...Olympics, the closing ceremony took place on Sunday. In case you missed it, we spent the last month covering the Tokyo Games and how marketers approached (and were impacted by) this year’s unusual event. Here’s a roundup: 

• How brands are using AI to track their in-game sponsorships
• A rule that stopped most brands from working with athletes during the Olympics recently changed
• For official sponsors, the Games will likely be a letdown
• Why trying to watch the Tokyo Olympics is a game in and of itself

Looking ahead: This month, we’ll spend time covering in-housing and how the trend is playing out across the industry. Read our first piece here and keep your eyes peeled for more. 

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• WarnerMedia’s House of Max studio will “develop commercials for advertisers that utilize characters and concepts from its various shows,” per Variety. 
• Duncan Hines is pitching keto-friendly baking mixes. Keto frosting is coming next year. We’re not kidding.
• The Dallas Cowboys are the NFL’s most valuable team—worth $6.5 billion, according to Forbes. In case you were in the market.
• YouTube and Spotify are rolling out cheaper subscription options.
• SpaceX is partnering with a Canadian tech startup to display ads in space.

SPONSORED BY VALASSIS, A VERICAST BUSINESS

Consumers are people first. Sure, they’re the type of peeps who (you hope) shop, buy, and consume your products. But while you may be focused on your ideal buyer, don’t lose sight of the fact that they are, first and foremost, people. The 2021 Consumer Intel Report, brought to you by Valassis, a Vericast business, shows how brands can tap into human connection through insights into what’s on people's minds. Download the full report here. 

FRENCH PRESS

There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren't those.

Instagram: Later just put out one of those “Here’s the best time to post on Instagram for each day of the week in 2021” articles—but its team analyzed more than 35 million Instagram posts to figure those times out, so it’s worth a read. 

Data and measurement: The ice caps are melting, the temperature is rising, and apparently the marketing data lakes are vanishing. 

Video: You know where to go for solid stock photos, but how about stock videos?  

Deep dive: Which consumer shopping habits have endured through the pandemic, and which have changed? That kind of data is essential to the growth of your biz. Get all the insights here in Morning Consult’s latest deep dive into consumer trust.*

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The breakfast of champions. 

ACCELERATE YOUR EXCELLENCE

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ICYMI

Catch up on a few Marketing Brew stories you might have missed.

• The pros and cons of taking your creative in-house
• Billions of ad dollars are spent on misinformation sites, study finds
• Taco Bell named Cashmere its culture AOR